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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23993065">Constraint</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity'>stateofintegrity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MASH (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:00:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23993065</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Klinger needs to learn to operate his wardrobe. Charles learns that, sometimes, it's fun to break the rules he's set for himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Constraint</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/peaceloveandjocularity/gifts">peaceloveandjocularity</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Outside of Korea, or before Korea if you prefered, Charles Emerson Winchester III had operated according to an unfailing code; he’d obeyed the rules, whether those rules belonged to his profession or the school he’d been exiled to by parents who loved him, but who did so in so frosty and muted a fashion that it did nothing to sustain him, or to some vague, general code like Honor or Decency or The Right Thing to Do. Since arriving at the 4077th, he’d broken every rule he’d once clung to, one by one. And more frightening, perhaps, than this latent gift for rebellion was the fact that the world kept right on spinning. This revelation hadn’t been enough to instill nihilism in him - not yet - but it kept him awake sometimes, wondering about chances missed and the parts of himself he’d denied. What if they were the best parts, somehow, after all?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The evening was grimly grey and scattershot with distant sounds of firing coming from the front. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Red sky at morning</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he thought. It had a different meaning in Korea. Too many blood red mornings had already stained him and he had so few service points. (Given how Pierce had been treated, the idea of getting out on those points might have been a mirage anyway). Rain had fallen intermittently throughout the day and the “roads” through the compound were half mire and half pool; Winchester turned his eyes from his reflection in the dark water. He knew that he looked the same on the outside (mostly - a little thinner, maybe) and somehow that was worse - that he could have endured so much and been left unmarked. At least the wounded had a purple heart to display. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He passed Sophie’s paddock, smiling ruefully as he always did at the sheer anachronism of a horse in a combat zone, and the Officer’s Club. The creek beyond the camp was nearly as ugly as the camp itself, but if he focused hard on moving water, he might move beyond his thoughts, his dread of the morning’s task and the fear that never left him: the fear that next time he just might not be good enough. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Living more in his head than in his body (borne down as it was by heavy army boots and shapeless garb), he nearly tumbled over the obstruction in his path. Thankfully, there were some things his body was still good at even when his mind was occupied; he ended up in his triage pose, hands outstretched to assess what was before him, before he even knew what</span>
  <em>
    <span> it </span>
  </em>
  <span>was. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As a physician, Charles was more empirical than sensual. Or he always had been, anyway. When his hands alighted on cold silk - wet, clinging, slipping through his fingers like flower petals - the analytical parts of him went still. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles had once told his colleagues that he did one thing at a time very well, and then moved on to the next task. This, too, was a rule, a part of his makeup. When he realized whose cold, wet skin the flower-petal silk was bent on sticking to, he broke it in a hurry. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even for a surgeon, Charles had large hands. Usually, he only thought about this when he (inevitably) ran out of gloves before colleagues with smaller hands. He was forced to think about it now as he fought for a way under the fabric. He’d never been angry at a piece of cloth before, but he knew that the stuff refusing to give way under his hands could only have become so waterlogged if Klinger had been out in the rain for awhile… which meant the situation was serious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yelling at Klinger when he was awake had never yielded much satisfaction. It didn’t help much now, either. “Corporal, I swear I will contact every general in the Eastern Theater and put an end to your costumes once and for all if you do not </span>
  <em>
    <span>wake up right now</span>
  </em>
  <span> and help me unriddle this horrible habiliment!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger definitely would have</span>
  <em>
    <span> liked</span>
  </em>
  <span> to have been awake. On one hand, he enjoyed the way Charles’ emotions made themselves apparent though a vocabulary so elevated most people would have needed stairs to start understanding it (and a pretty thick thesaurus). On the other, Korea was bad enough on its own without being unconscious in wet grass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As that wet grass soaked his knees, Charles came back to himself enough to remember some of the tricks of triage. He hadn’t precisely planned to be using any of them - least of all on </span>
  <em>
    <span>Klinger</span>
  </em>
  <span> who looked very much like a damsel in a John William Waterhouse painting - but they offered a course of action, at least. He didn’t think Klinger was playing possum - if he was he should have been shivering under all that wet fabric - but Charles had heard about too many of the Corporal’s section 8 attempts to be completely sure. “I am destroying this dress now,” he informed his prone charge. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ensuing silence confirmed what he’d already known; whatever had happened to Klinger, he couldn’t hear the surgeon who’d half stumbled over him, or the sound of fabric ripping as Charles sought to find the flesh that would tell him what he was dealing with. Two fingers slipped under a damaged neckline to feel for a pulse. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Good</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Fortunately, if unexpectedly, the Corporal’s pulse was strong. Stranger still, Charles couldn’t find any evidence of blood - or even of injury. What did that leave? Snake bite? Swooning?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Klinger, if you have learned to swoon, Heaven help us all,” he said, pushing through layers of wounded fabric and finding surprisingly soft skin underneath. The frantic energy went out of his hands for a moment and he felt the last of his rules drop from a very high place and shatter. “Maxwell, you are beautiful.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In a film, this impossible utterance would have woken the downed creature in his arms - or at least stopped time. Time went nimbly on but Charles stayed still a moment, undone by tattered fabric and dark hair - rain droplets scattered on it like a handful of small crystals. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he snapped back to himself. “You are also unconscious. Shall we agree to table the compliments until such a time as you can either appreciate them or be quite horrified at my candor?” He took that troublesome stillness for agreement, lifted the man up, and bore him out of the rain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were two logical places to take an unconscious and possibly wounded individual on base. The first was the OR with its bright lights, sterilized instruments, and trained staff. The second was the Swamp, home to the finest surgeons Charles had ever known (not that he would have easily admitted this). Uncharacteristically worried, Winchester didn’t head for either one. It was a lapse bigger than the words he’d spoken to the downed man. After all, he was not just well bred - he was well </span>
  <em>
    <span>trained</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He’d treated terrible wounds and impossible injuries - and he’d remained calm throughout. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am decidedly ungrateful to you about this,” he informed the Corporal when he’d laid him across his own bed. “Surgeons do not lose their heads, Klinger. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Winchesters</span>
  </em>
  <span> do not lose their heads. So would you care to explain to me exactly why I am surrounded by </span>
  <em>
    <span>the Klinger Collection</span>
  </em>
  <span> instead of surgical implements!?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gaining no answer to what he really felt was a reasonable question, Charles finished with the ruined dress and searched around for something sturdy enough to dry off his unexpected charge. There was more taffeta than terry cloth on offer, but he compromised with corduroy. “What were you doing out there anyway?” Apparently, part of the experience of losing his head was to engage in a diatribe. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tattered strands of the dress provided scanty cover. Pushing them aside, the fabric still reminding him of flower petals, he cursed himself for not thinking this through. He didn’t even have a stethoscope! What he did have was escalating worry and what Pierce had once grudgingly praised as X-ray hands. “I may not be able to mend whatever has befallen you, here,” he told the unconscious Corporal, “but I should be able to </span>
  <em>
    <span>find</span>
  </em>
  <span> it.” How he was going to explain this version of exploratory surgery to anyone if he did have to bring Klinger to the OR was something he wasn’t willing to face yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not believe I’ve ever acted the fool over anyone else before,” he said, searching for puncture marks, for a contusion - for </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “Except Honoria, of course. I’ve told her about you, Max. Not that I’ve dreamed of undressing you slowly from the ensembles you work so hard to assemble, of course. Of course, I never intended to tell </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, either, and yet here we find ourselves.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He felt around beneath his dark hair, brushing it back from his face. “I do not typically hope for head injuries, my desert prince, but I would be most grateful if the cause for your stillness was something so familiar. You are frightening me, love.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though chilled with nerves, his hands were ceaseless in their motions, moving from his head to his neck and shoulders. “Does it frighten you to be called that? Well, you’re welcome to fight me on the nomenclature when I’m moaning ridiculous things into your hair. For now, I’ll settle for anything. You have ridiculously long eyelashes, do you know that? Flutter them for me - just once, just a little! -  and I will write paens to that youthful and ridiculous city you love so much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mention of Toledo moved Klinger no more than his hands did. Fear warred in Winchester with frustration. Had he made the wrong choice appointing himself sole rescuer this way? Should he have consulted Potter or Hunnicutt or Pierce? Was he running out of time?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>These fears crashed jaggedly into the few facts he possessed. Max’s color wasn’t great, but his breathing and pulse were fine. He wasn’t fevered. If anything, his skin was too cold. Unconscious did not necessarily mean in danger. He knew this as a thoracic surgeon. But he also knew that no amount of training in thoracic surgery ever taught any man how to bridle his own heart when it leapt in response to a loved one’s pain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did not intend to find you here,” he said, fingers brushing over the strong-beating heart of his charge. “You would be pleased, I think, to know how very much you terrified me when I realized just how much I felt for you.” He squeezed a lifeless hand. “You would not desert me in this terrible place before I had a chance to tell you, would you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He would sanction himself forever for the next motion he undertook. It was not merely unprofessional - it bordered on melodrama. On the other hand, (he’d write to Honoria) he’d borne Klinger in his arms and confessed his love - so maybe this was just the next step? Moving with a gentleness so exquisite he scarcely recognized himself as capable of it, he lifted the smaller man and held him tight against him, willing his fast-beating heart to communicate through skin and clothing alike, to offer its strength to Klinger’s heart and cause his eyes to open. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Honoria had been on hand, she would have reminded her brother that per every romance novel ever penned, a little bit of melodrama could be a rewarding thing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Having lifted Klinger, Charles encountered something that definitely wasn’t mere ribs. Processing more through touch than sight, the surgeon wasn’t sure whether to laugh or sob or scream. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maxwell, when you revive, I am going to throttle you… just as soon as I finish kissing you.” Sure of what he was about now - and feeling a fool for letting fear so cloud his mind that his clever hands hadn’t recognized what he was facing - he felt around in the center of the Corporal’s back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“These things wouldn’t happen,” he informed Klinger, “under two conditions. The first is that you wear gender appropriate clothing. This condition is unacceptable to us both.” He yanked at a string, using the fingers of his free hand to loosen a series of laces that had been woven back and forth. “The second is that you ask </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span> to lace these things.” He grunted with the effort of undoing the too-tightly-drawn strings. “Granted, my preference would be to slowly release you from them - but if it keeps you conscious, I am certain I can be made amenable.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The laces gave and Charles heard a sound that thrilled him more than any symphony. In his arms, limp as a ragdoll and chilled from the rain, Klinger sighed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Winchester echoed the exhalation and leaned the man back on his pillows. “Idiot. Why didn’t you ask me to help you? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Why a corset at all</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger coughed, lungs becoming reaccustomed to freedom from stays. “Who doesn’t want an hourglass figure, Major?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your actual figure is fetching enough, I assure you. Are you alright now? Do you need anything?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You did say you’d kiss me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a moment, Winchester’s heart seemed to be caught in a corset of its own… a steel one. “Maxwell!?! I also recall that I said I would throttle you - which I surely shall if you just subjected me to all of that fear for no reason!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger held up an appeasing hand, coughed again. “It’s not like that, Major. I wasn’t faking. You think I’d lay in on the wet ground for no reason? I really did make the laces too tight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright. Then how did you hear…” he trailed off, remembering the ridiculous things he’d said. Had he said something </span>
  <em>
    <span>kind</span>
  </em>
  <span> about Toledo? He was never going to live this down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. I just </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And about all that you said, sir?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ditto.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Later, Klinger reminded him that it was against the rules for him to be out of the Swamp all night. Winchester surprised him when he said lightly, laughingly, “Good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>End!</span>
</p><p> </p>
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